


Third-Day Story

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen, West Wing Title Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-10
Updated: 2008-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Last night, you had a bullet wound you could keep spare change in, and this morning, it's all healed up except for an interesting scar."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Third-Day Story

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to luzdeestrellas for all her help, and to Amberlynne for the handholding. Written for [**the West Wing title project**](http://musesfool.livejournal.com/1487052.html).

The bullet wound in Sam's shoulder hurts, and he would really like for that to stop. He usually sleeps on his right side, but now, of course, he can't get comfortable because he wants to sleep on his left and he can't.

He's tempted to wake Dean up and whine at him, because if he's miserable, Dean should be miserable too, but he knows that's petty and childish, and while he might have spent the day feeling like he was five years old again, what with the skinned knees and shoe-losing, he isn't actually five anymore. Since he's spent the last twenty years trying to prove that to Dean, he doesn't want to lose any of the ground he's gained.

Instead, he glares at his shoulder and puts a hand over the bandage, as if he can will the wound to stop hurting. He ignores Dean's sleepy, "Don't pick at it," and Jesus, sometimes it's like _Dean_ is the psychic one, and Sam's never figured out how he does it.

"'m not," he answers, because _pressing_ isn't the same as _picking_, and God, he really does sound like a five-year-old.

"Go to sleep, Sam."

"Hmph." He wants to roll away so his back is to Dean, but, of course, he _can't_, so he's back where he started, glaring at the bandage and pressing his hand against it, and _fuck_, he probably shouldn't have done that.

Dean stumbles out of bed, muttering curses under his breath, and trudges to the bathroom. Sam hears the water running, and the snap of a pill bottle being opened, and then Dean is back with a Vicodin and a glass of water, both of which he shoves at Sam with a wordless grunt that means, Shut the fuck up and go to sleep. It's kind of amazing what Dean can convey in a grunt. Sam grunts back, fine, and even without saying the word he sounds petulant, so he just lies there and waits for the drug to do its work.

When Sam wakes up, his shoulder doesn't hurt so much as it _itches_, and he's not sure that's any better.

"Don't scratch," Dean calls from the bathroom.

Sam, picking at the adhesive anchoring the bandage to his skin, says, "I'm not."

Dean sticks his head out of the bathroom, toothbrush dangling out of his mouth and one eyebrow raised in disbelief. "Uh huh."

"It _itches_."

"Means it's healing."

By the time Dean's ready to change the dressing, Sam's got the bandage peeled off and where there had been a gaping hole in his shoulder, there's now an angry red pucker of skin.

Dean looks at the wound, face going pale beneath his freckles, and then up at Sam's face. "What the--What did you do?"

"Um. I don't know?" He doesn't mean to make it a question. "I--" He shakes his head. "I don't know."

"Come on, Sam. Last night, you had a bullet wound you could keep spare change in, and this morning it's all healed up except for an interesting scar you'll lie about to the next girl you fuck." Dean's voice is skeptical as he rummages through the first-aid kit. "You must've done something." He tosses the tube of Vaseline Intensive Care (with vitamin E and aloe! the label says) at Sam, and Sam knows he's relying on routine to carry them through the weirdness. It's a skill they mastered young--had to, with the life they live. Sam follows the routine himself, squirts some lotion into his palm and rubs it into the scar, then rubs the excess into the back of his other hand. Dean comes over and grabs him by the wrist, runs his fingers over the grooves between his knuckles. When he drops Sam's left hand and reaches for his right, Sam jumps up off the bed.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Looking for claws."

"What?"

"Like Wolverine." Sam just stares at him, unable to follow the jump in the conversation. "He's a super-healer, and he has those wicked metal claws."

Sam covers his face with his hand, bites back the hysterical laughter bubbling up inside. "Claws."

"Always knew you were a freak." Dean's using the old joke to spackle over the awkwardness, and his mouth is stretched in a grin that makes him look like he's in pain.

"It's just a fluke, Dean. Or maybe it's one last gift from the rabbit's foot." Sam grabs some clean underwear from his duffel and heads to the bathroom, ending the conversation. "I'm gonna shower now."

Dean purses his lips, looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn't. He just shakes his head and starts packing their bags.

Sam tries not to think about it over the next few weeks--he's got other things on his mind, and they manage not to get too badly injured on their next couple of hunts.

They're in Santa Fe when it happens again. They take out the rawhead--and Sam never, ever takes those fuckers lightly, not anymore--and while Dean takes care of burning the body, Sam sweeps the area for kids. He finds two tucked away in the warren of abandoned sewers the thing was using for a lair.

The girl is bruised and scared, but otherwise all right, but the little boy has claw marks across his belly; beneath the oozing blood and shredded sweatshirt, the kid looks pale and woozy. Sam pulls a towel out of his duffel and presses it against the kid's belly, applying pressure to try to stop the bleeding.

"You're gonna be okay," Sam tells him. "Okay?" He tries to sound reassuring, uses the tone Dean always uses with him when he's hurt, and the kid nods, big eyes open wide and face streaked with dirt and tears. The trust on the kid's face makes Sam's chest warm and achy. "We're gonna get you fixed up in no time. My name's Sam. What's yours?"

"Brendan."

"Okay, Brendan, you're doing real good."

"It tickles," Brendan says, squirming away and leaving Sam uselessly holding a blood-streaked towel.

From what Sam can see in the dim light, the gashes on Brendan's belly have closed, leaving angry red lines in their place. Sam sits back on his heels, shocked, and the two kids fling their arms around him in gratitude, and he flails a little trying to keep from falling backwards into the muck.

"You made Brendan all better," the girl says. "Thank you."

They call 911 and slip away when the ambulance arrives, the two kids bundled up by the EMTs, and while Sam isn't ready yet to tell Dean what happened with Brendan--he doesn't _know_ what happened--he knows better than to think he can hide the blood on his hands and his shirt, though he'd wiped the worst of it on the towel, which he'd left behind.

"You get hurt, Sammy?"

"No. The little boy, Brendan, was cut up pretty bad."

"Ah." Dean nods, and drops the subject.

Sam breathes a sigh of relief, though he's pretty sure Dean noticed the kid wasn't injured, and will eventually have more to say, probably at the worst possible moment.

Unlike the visions, this seems to be a useful ability, and one he can control, but he's hesitant to explore it, still hears Ava's words about flipping switches and learning curves, the yellow-eyed demon's invitation to lead his demon army.

There really isn't time, anyway. Dean used to occasionally build downtime into their schedule, such as it was, extra days here or there for sleeping in and washing the car, playing pool and meeting girls, without the urgency of a job driving them on, but they don't stop much anymore. They can't afford to, not with the clock ticking loudly during every silence, and the threat of the FBI hanging over every encounter with civilians. They spend almost all their time together now.

So he doesn't know it's _going_ to work when he pulls Dean close and puts a hand over the bite marks on his neck. He just knows it _needs_ to. Gordon's bite is nothing like the two clean puncture marks you see in vampire movies--Dean's throat is a mess of torn flesh, his blood running warm over Sam's fingers, and his pulse is rapid and, Thank God, strong.

"The fuck are you doing, Sammy?" Dean asks, his voice raspy. Sam can feel his Adam's apple bob as he swallows.

"Shut up for a second, okay?" He closes his eyes, concentrates, _wills_ the punctures to close.

He feels a rush of warmth in his chest, recognizes it as the same thing he felt when Brendan's wounds closed up, the same tight ache he gets whenever he thinks about losing Dean, and then Dean is slapping his hand away.

"Tic--Itches," Dean mutters, scratching at the pale pink marks on his neck, and then, with that undercurrent of fear that vibrates through Sam at some unheard but familiar frequency, "_Sam_?"

"It's okay. You're okay."

Dean snorts. "Not Wolverine, then, huh."

"I guess not."

"What the hell, Sammy? What the freaking hell?" He stops, cocks his head, and Sam can practically see the light bulb go off. "Maybe it's more of that demonic psychic power stuff, like the visions."

"I haven't had a vision since you killed the demon." Sam manages to keep his voice level, but he can hear the edge of panic underneath.

Dean scrubs a hand across his face. "Yeah, but--"

"I _haven't_, Dean."

"You were dead for three days, Sam." They both flinch (though no one else would probably notice), but Dean doesn't stop talking. "Maybe, I don't know," he ducks his head, avoids Sam's gaze, which isn't surprising, considering they've never laid out it so bluntly before, "maybe you came back with a little extra mojo or something."

Sam has to swallow hard, tamp down the nausea Dean's words cause, before he can speak. "I don't have any mojo anymore, Dean. Not since the demon died."

Dean's mouth is pulled back in a grin that is strained at the edges, more like a grimace failing to pass itself off as a grin, and his eyes look a little wild, like he's freaking out and trying not to let Sam see, like he doesn't know Sam knows all his tells. "You sure about that?"

"Yeah," he insists, though he knows exactly what Dean is thinking, has been thinking the same thing himself for a while now. Or, really, trying not to think the same thing. He's always sucked at not-thinking, though he can not-talk with the best of them. He's a Winchester, after all. "Can we just--can we get cleaned up first?" Sam asks, worn out and not ready to wade any deeper into this conversation, which he knows will feature Dean freaking out and trying not to show it.

Dean runs his fingers over the marks again--Sam doesn't think they'll even scar--and nods once, slowly.

Sam knows he hasn't avoided the conversation, just postponed it, but that's good enough for the moment.

They both take quick showers (Sam closes his eyes, doesn't watch the pink-tinged water swirl down the drain) and then shag ass out of town, not even bothering to put the motel room to rights. Sam doesn't remember when he stopped caring about the credit card fraud, but they always try to leave a decent tip for housekeeping, because they often leave a mess behind.

Dean insists on driving, and Sam knows it's his way of keeping control, feeling safe, so he doesn't argue, sinks down into the passenger seat and stares out the window, trying not to think too hard about anything that's happened.

He doesn't mean to fall asleep, but the next thing he knows, Dean's shaking him awake and they're somewhere far away from where they started out. Dean's frowning, the skin around his eyes and mouth looks tight, the lines deeper than they used to, and Sam thinks he's too young to look so tired. But he can't deal with Dean looking at him with fearful questions in his eyes, so he stumbles into the room, kicks his sneakers off, and collapses into bed.

Dean's not the only one who knows how to avoid conversations he doesn't want to have. It's a Winchester survival skill, and Sam learned it at Dean's knee.

He wakes again in the morning, to the sound of Dean leaving. His fear must show on his face, because Dean grunts, "Coffee. And then I'm gonna take a look at the car." Dean pauses, like he expects Sam to ask, but Sam just slumps back down under the covers, split-second of ridiculous panic over. He knows if he asks about the car, he'll get a lecture he's too tired to pay attention to; Dean knows it, too--he opens his mouth to say something and then closes it again, shaking his head. He leaves without another word.

Sam is showered and dressed by the time Dean's back, but Dean doesn't hand him a steaming hot cup of over-brewed gas station coffee. Instead, he sits on the edge of the other bed and thumps a bottle of water down on the night table.

"Well?"

Sam looks from the bottle to Dean and back again, baffled. "Well, what?"

Dean gestures to the bottle. "Water into wine, Sammy. Though I'd prefer beer. Can you do beer? Some Molson, maybe? Something good, anyway."

"That's not funny."

"I think it's hilarious. And also strangely possible."

"Dean--" Sam is not ready for this conversation. Sam doesn't think he'll _ever_ be ready for this conversation.

"Hear me out, man. I've been doing some thinking."

"I hope you didn't strain yourself."

"Ha ha, you're so funny, Sam. Not." Dean's mouth twists in mockery, then his expression turns serious. "You ever think it didn't come from the demon?"

Sam can't breathe for a second, and when he asks, "What?" his voice is a hoarse croak.

Dean shrugs, and almost pulls off the attempt at nonchalant, but Sam can see the tension in his shoulders. "Healing's not exactly a demonic power, is it? I mean, it's more anti-Antichrist than straight-up Antichrist, don't you think?"

"I thought you didn't believe--"

"I'm not saying I believe in anything, Sam. Except what I saw with my own two eyes." He puts a hand to his throat, holds Sam's gaze, and Sam can see confusion and worry, but also all the love Dean never gives voice to, and none of the revulsion he was afraid of. "Stop freaking out about it, okay?" He drops his hand from his throat to Sam's knee, squeezes it once, reassuringly. "Whatever it is, we'll figure it out." He gets up, goes over to the table where he dropped the greasy brown bag containing their breakfast. "But don't try to walk on water, okay? I don't want to have to haul your ass back to shore when you sink." He pulls a sandwich out of the bag and tosses it at Sam, who catches it, laughing.

"Okay," Sam says, and for the moment, maybe it is.

end

~*~


End file.
